12
Oct/10

LOS CAMPESINOS!

12
Oct/10

Los Campesinos! are unlikely to be boring at two area shows (photo by Jon Bergman)

Music Hall of Williamsburg
66 North Sixth St.
Friday, October 15, and Saturday, October 16, $21.40, 9:00
www.myspace.com/loscampesinos
www.musichallofwilliamsburg.com

Los Campesinos! fully deserve the exclamation point at the end of their name, as they do everything in a big way. There’s plenty of big and nothing dull about their latest full-length album, ROMANCE IS BORING (Arts & Crafts, January 2010), fifteen blasts of loud, hip-shaking power pop that mixes in ’80s new wave, punk, funk, and blaring horns into its anthemic, aggressive party rock (and we mean that in a good way). Their follow-up to 2007’s STICKING FINGERS INTO SOCKETS, 2008’s HOLD ON NOW, YOUNGSTER, and last year’s WE ARE BEAUTIFUL, WE ARE DOOMED, the disc emits the endless glee of Matt & Kim and the deep, dark yearning of My Bloody Valentine. The seven-piece Cardiff band sings about vomit and physics (“In Media Res”), phallic cake and cauterized ventricles (“Romance Is Boring”), toilet walls and huffing a Sharpie (the driving “We’ve Got your Back [Documented Emotional Breakdown Number 2]”), erections and heat rash (the synth-heavy “A Heat Rash in the Shape of the Show Me State; or, Letters from Me to Charlotte”), plugholes and piss-soaked jeans (the relatively calm “Coda: A Burn Scar in the Shape of the Sooner State”), and petrol and dog shot (the orchestral “I Just Sighed, I Just Sighed, Just So You Know”) in songs that are as fanciful as their titles. Everything they are about is encapsulated in the epic-sounding “This Is a Flag. There Is No Wind,” a three-and-a-half-minute journey through indie music. Then, just this past August, Los Campesinos! released a four-song remix follow-up EP to ROMANCE IS BORING called ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS, which makes sure you don’t get bored with the former, which we weren’t, but we’re psyched to be able to hear the Princess Version of “Romance Is Boring,” “Letters from Me to Charlotte (RSVP),” “Straight in at 101/It’s Never Enough,” and “(All’s Well that Ends) In Media Res.” Los Campesinos! played Irving Plaza earlier this year, and now they’re back for two shows at the Music Hall of Williamsburg on October 15-16, with Byrds of Paradise and Johnny Foreigner.